More employees recommend ambulance service

More employees working for North East Ambulance Service would recommend the Trust as a place to work and would be happy with the standard of care provided by the Trust for friends and relatives – according to the results of the annual NHS staff survey.

 

Every year, North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) invites its 2,600 employees to have a say about their workplace as part of the national NHS Staff Survey.

 

More employees than ever took the chance to have their say in this year’s survey, which was carried out between September and December 2017, with the overall response rate up from 49 to 54 per cent.

 

The highlights demonstrate significant improvements in the last 3 years:

 

·                   76% of employees would be happy with the standard of care provided by this organisation for friends and relatives - an increase of 10% since 2015

 

·                   56% of employees would recommend NEAS as a place to work or receive treatment - an increase of 13% since 2015

 

The results show the Trust fared significantly better on 15 questions compared to the previous year.  Only one score declined, which was the number of employees completing an appraisal.

 

In seven areas, NEAS employees scored the Trust higher than the national average for the ambulance sector.  They include managerial interest and actions on staff health and wellbeing, how motivated they feel at work, how valued they feel and how satisfied they feel with the quality of work and care that they are able to deliver.

 

And in comparison to the previous year’s survey results, employees report being happier with the recognition they get for good work, the opportunities they get to use their skills and non-mandatory training, learning and development.  The results also suggest that employees are more satisfied that the organisation puts patient care as its top priority and that it acts upon errors, near misses or incidents reported so that they do not happen again, as well as concerns raised by patients or service users.

 

Caroline Thurlbeck, director of strategy, transformation and workforce, said: “We want NEAS to be a great place to work, where individuals can make a valuable contribution, be recognised for their efforts and be supported learn and develop.  Feedback from our employees helps to better understand employee satisfaction and make improvements that will help us to retain and attract a great workforce and ensure that we are doing what we can to look after them so that they can take better care of our patients.

 

“Overall this year’s staff survey results are really positive for us and give us plenty to be proud of. In some areas we are even leading the ambulance sector which is testament to the efforts we have made to improve from last year.

 

“We know there is still work to do to improve further and we are already working on those areas for improvement to help us make NEAS an even better place to work.”

 

Following the survey’s publication, in the next 12 months the Trust will focus on giving employees more opportunities to make suggestions that improve their work, better involving them in deciding on changes introduced that affect them and give greater feedback on patient experience.

 

NEAS also collects a range of patient feedback and a recent Ipsos Mori report highlighted patient satisfaction had also improved.  For more information see www.neas.nhs.uk.

 

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Contact: North East Ambulance Service press office, Tel: 0191 4302099, publicrelations@neas.nhs.uk